Containers which can be utilized for both shipping and display of various products are relatively abundant in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 3,157,275, which issued to W. M. Tolaas on Nov. 17, 1964, for example, discloses a display folder for bottles and jars which is formed from a single blank of material The Tolaas display folder includes a panel having apertures formed to accommodate the upper and lower portions of a bottle to be displayed. A similar display container is disclosed in Canadian Pat. No. 829,134, which issued to Douglas A. Morton on Dec. 9, 1969. This latter patent shows an individual product carton featuring retainer-type end panels which serve to contain the product therewithin.
A combination shipping container and display box is also disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,053,101, which issued to John J. Hart, Jr. on Oct. 11, 1977. In this patent, partition sections may be placed within the container prior to its closure and the container can be converted to a display box by separating the cover portion of the container therefrom.
Other prior art has been aimed at providing a package for securely containing cylindrical objects therein. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,642,125, which issued to G. F. Johnson on Feb. 15, 1972, shows a shipping carton formed from a single carton blank and featuring an outer top panel having a bracing flap which is folded inwardly to engage the upper portions of a cylindrical object to be shipped.
Despite all the prior work done in this area, there remain problems in effectivley utilizing a single container for both shipping and display of packaged products. With prior art containers, one had to choose between adequate support and protection for the shipped product, and adequate display of such product within the unmodified container. The prior art did not provide a container featuring adequate product support, adequate display features, and dividability into two or more subcontainers (each featuring similar support and display characteristics), without additional inner packs or other modification of the container. Container assembly often could not easily be accomplished with automatic equipment, and use of the containers for display purposes often required additional handling and/or manual modification of the container. On the other hand, containers with adequate open display area often required additional shipping protection and/or packing within larger containers.